Hello Everyone! We are please to show off our new trailer for the Herschel Sizemore documentary. The film will have its premiere in October at the Blue Ridge Film and Music Fest, so if you are close and can attend please stop by.
Backyard Green Films is trying to raise money to finish the documentary film entitled “A Mandolin in B”. The story is about Herschel Sizemore and the many musicians he has influenced. so please go to www.Indiegogo.com/A-Mandolin-in-B to learn more and to become a part of the film.
We are getting ready to travel back to Virginia to do another round of interviews for our documentary film “A Mandolin in B”. First with Herschel Sizemore and then down to North Carolina to interview Doyle Lawson during his festival.
Bluegrass Today just publish a story of The Travelers new song, which Backyard Green Films produced.
By: David Morris | March 20, 2012 |
Editor’s Note: This essay traces a song from the initial idea to the recording and first public performance. We would be interested in similar stories from other songwriters.
On Feb. 19, early in the Herschel Sizemore benefit concert in Roanoke, I was pretty sure I was the most nervous person in the building.
The Travelers were getting ready to play The Tenth Day of September, a song I co-wrote last summer.
Little did I know that my co-writer, John Miller, guitarist for The Travelers, was thinking HE was the most nervous person in the auditorium. John had worked out the guitar introduction just two days before, and the band was performing it live about 36 hours after playing it together for the first time. Adding to the pressure: A California film crew was recording the performance for a short video project.
John nailed the intro and got ready to sing the opening line. This was it. Words that I had written were about to be sung on stage for the first time.
I held my breath…
Tenth Day almost didn’t get written. After Mike Conner, The Travelers bass player, introduced us early in 2011, John arranged a few songs that I wrote or co-wrote with Chris Dockins, and John and I co-wrote two of our own. One of them, River of Tears, grew out of an idea John came up with last summer after jamming at Roanoke’s Fiddle Fest with Paul Williams, Jesse Brock, Sierra Hull and others.
A quick turnaround on that one – scheduled to join The Tenth Day of September on The Travelers album due out later this year on Patuxent Records – emboldened John to throw out another idea.
“Hey, man,” the familiar voice on the other end of the phone said on a mid-August afternoon. “Let’s write a song about Sept. 11.”
My first thought: No way. That dreadful day was too huge to wrestle into a three-minute bluegrass tune. But John and I were in the early stages of our writing relationship, so rather than reject the idea out of hand, I told him I’d chew on it a bit. I figured I’d wait a week or two, tell him I wasn’t getting anywhere and let the idea die.
My reluctance was rooted in my own experience on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the weeks that followed. As the chief White House correspondent for Bloomberg News at the time, I was with President Bush at an elementary school in Sarasota, FL, when the World Trade Center towers were attacked. Later, I traveled with him to visit a Manhattan fire station that had lost many of its firefighters that day, when he sat with elementary school students who discussed some graphic art projects they created after 9/11, and when he attended a memorial service for those who died at the Pentagon. At his first televised news conference a month after the attacks, I questioned him about U.S. efforts to capture Osama bin Laden.
But as much as I didn’t want to write the song, I couldn’t stop thinking about it as the 10th anniversary of one of the country’s darkest days approached. I don’t have children, but I thought how 9/11 forced many moms and dads to raise their kids alone. I thought how a child who was six or seven at the time, would now be driving and dating. Something clicked. I sat down and started writing from the perspective of a man who had lost his wife and was looking back a decade later.
The chorus came first:
Wish I could turn the clock back
To a day we both remember.
In my heart it’s always
The tenth day of September.
The verses fell into place soon after. The songwriting muses are fickle. Sometimes I have to wrestle with words. Sometimes they just come pouring out. This was one of those pouring-out songs.
The day after I started the song, I sent the roughed out lyrics to John. He cried the first time he read them.
John is a talented arranger and a first-rate flat picker. Within a few days, he had worked up a melody and sang it to me over the phone. I cried the first time I heard it.
John shared the lyrics with Norman Wright of The Travelers. Norman has played with the Bluegrass Cardinals, the Country Gentlemen and other bands over the years and is a first-rate songwriter. So when I heard Norman was high on Tenth Day, I felt my dream of getting a song cut was about to come true.
Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
I tried not to get too excited, because I knew it would only take one good song to come along and push Tenth Day to the cutting room floor. Plus I remembered a cautionary tale from my songwriting buddy Cliff Abbott. One of his songs had been recorded by a bluegrass band that everybody knows, but it never made the album because the band landed a deal with a label that required it to go in a different direction.
Finally, on Jan. 19, after what seemed like a decade, I received formal word that The Travelers were, indeed, cutting The Tenth Day of September.
John and Mike had worked together on a soundtrack for a film project by Rick Bowman and Rick was flying in from San Diego for the debut. While he was in Roanoke, he planned to shoot a video project based on the benefit concert for Herschel Sizemore, which Mike was instrumental in putting together. And, at Mike’s request, Rick was also thinking about making a video about the band.
A year ago, I sat in Norman’s living room at one of the band’s first organizational meetings. I hadn’t met Norman or Kevin Church, a terrific banjo picker, before that night but I knew all about their music. I could close my eyes and just about hear Norman’s tenor and Kevin’s baritone singing one of my songs.
One thing led to another. Next thing I knew I was in John’s Christiansburg studio, being a fly on the wall as The Travelers laid down tracks for the song one day and played it live for the first time the next.
The film crew was in the studio, too, and would be at the show the next day. It was fascinating to watch the song come to life, hear Norman and Kevin add powerful harmony parts to John’s lead and watch all four guys work out the final details of the arrangement and lay down tracks. Each layer made the song a bit better. By the end of a long day, The Travelers had made The Tenth Day of September their song.
The next day took just about forever to arrive. But finally, John was introducing the song. Our song! On a stage that would be graced that day by some of the biggest names in bluegrass, who gathered without pay to honor one of their own.
As John sang the opening lines, I don’t think I was breathing.
The rest of it was a blur. Before I knew it, I heard applause.
I felt like I was a small part of the effort to raise money for Herschel Sizemore.
But there was something else, too.
I’ve called myself a songwriter for a couple of years.
Now, at last, I felt like one.
Backyard Green Films in association with Billingsgate Media shot and produced a short film in February 2012. Filmed at the Tone Room Studios in Christiansburg, Virginia and the Herschel Sizemore Benefit Concert in Roanoke, Virginia. We were able to capture the band and songwriters in this long form music video about the writing and recording process of a Bluegrass song by The Travelers. The song was written by David Morris and John Miller. You can go to Bluegrass Today to read the article about The Travelers and their new song The Tenth Day of September.
On February 19th, we were fortunate enough to film the Herschel and Joyce Sizemore Benefit Concert in Roanoke, Virginia. Director Rick Bowman, DP Bill Perrine and Second Cameraman Lacy Stinnett captured over 20 hours of footage from the show, as well as numerous interviews backstage. Associate Producer and Events Coordinator Mike Conner provided our crew with unlimited access to the event, and also was able arrange many contacts for us to interview for the week after the show. We hope to have the film ready to premiere at this year’s IMBA awards show this Fall. Please stay tuned as we keep you updated on the progress, and post clips from the film.
Also, check out the Bluegrass Today online magazine for an article about the event.
On Sunday, February 19, in Roanoke, Virginia, Backyard Green Films, in association with Billingsgate Media will be documenting the Herschel Sizemore Benefit Concert. A bunch of Herschel & Joyce’s friends in the bluegrass music world are coming together to help raise money to pay their quite large medical bills. So far, the line up is The Seldom Scene, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice, Grasstowne, The Travelers, Springfield Exit (Linda Lay, Sammy Shelor, Marshall Wilborn, David Mclaughlin, David Lay) The Stacy Grubb Band, Acoustic Endeavors, Kevin Baucom, Republik Steele, Johnny & Jeanette Williams, and the great Del McCoury. If you’d like tickets to this one-day extravaganza of music, there’s several ways to do that. You can call toll free 866-883-9466, or visit the web here: Herschel Sizemore Benefit Concert Tickets
To find out more about Herschel Sizemore please visit here: Herschel Sizemore or Please visit our FaceBook page and give us a “like”.
Also, visit the benefit blog to find out more: Herschel Benefit
For Immediate Release: San Diego, Ca. November 15th, 2011
Backyard Green Films has won a prestigious Award of Merit from The Indie Fest. The award was given for Director Rick Bowman’s exciting documentary, Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court. The documentary tells an exceptional story about the Carroll County courthouse shooting featuring the narration of actor David Heath, animation by the award winning Dave Hamby and DoubleTake Media Solutions, and music by Conner and Miller.
Director/Writer Rick Bowman and Editor/Writer Bill Perrine are excited about receiving this very prestigious award and want to thank The Indie Fest. “We just wanted to tell this very important story about the people involved and the tragedy that happened in this tiny mountain town of Virginia.”
The Indie Fest recognizes film professionals who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to profound social change. Entries are judged by highly qualified professionals in the film industry. Information about the Indie Fest and a list of recent winners can be found at www.theindiefest.com.
In winning the Indie, Backyard Green Films joins the ranks of other high-profile winners of this internationally respected award. Thomas Baker, Ph.D., who chairs the Indie Fest, had this to say about the latest winners. ” The Indie is not an easy award to win. Entries are received from around the world. The Indie helps set the standard for craft and creativity. The judges were pleased with the exceptionally high quality of entries. The goal of The Indie is to help winners achieve the recognition they deserve.”
For more information about this film visit www.BackyardGreenFilms.com.
We are proud to announce that Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court is now available on DVD and digital download through Createspace and will be coming soon to Amazon, Indieflix, and Snagfilms. Clink this link to order a copy: https://www.createspace.com/321667
Backyard Green Films is proud to announce the premiere of the documentary film Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court. It will play on August 18th at the historic Rex Theater in the town of Galax, Virginia. Director Rick Bowman is proud to be showing the film in Galax, which is located just a few miles from the town of Hillsville where the tragedy took place.
